63 



violent headach. It is now one in the morning, 

 and I hear them still shouting and singing. I gave 

 them a holiday for Saturday next, and told them 

 that I had brought them all presents from England; 

 and so, I believe, we parted very good friends. 



January 3. 



I have reached Jamaica in the best season for 

 seeing my property in a favourable point of view ; 

 it is crop time, when all the laborious work is 

 over, and the negroes are the most healthy and 

 merry. This morning I went to visit the hos- 

 pital, and found there only eight patients out of 

 three hundred negroes, and not one of them a 

 serious case. Yesterday I had observed a remark- 

 ably handsome Creole girl, called Psyche, and she 

 really deserved the name. This morning a little 

 brown girl made her appearance at breakfast, with 

 an orange bough, to flap away the flies, and, on 

 enquiry, she proved to be an emanation of the 

 aforesaid Psyche. It is evident, therefore, that 

 Psyche has already visited the palace of Cupid ; I 

 heartily hope that she is not now upon her road to 

 the infernal regions: but, as the ancients had two 

 Cupids, one divine and the other sensual, so am I 

 in possession of two Psyches ; and on visiting the 

 hospital, there was poor Psyche the second. Pro- 

 bably this was the Psyche of the sensual Cupid. 



I passed the morning in driving about the estate : 

 my house is frightful to look at, but very clean and 



